THROUGH AGNOSTIC 
SPECTACLES 



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THROUGH AGNOSTIC 
SPECTACLES 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC 
SPECTACLES 



BY 

ALEXANDER KADISON, M.A. 



NEW YORK 

THE TRUTH SEEKER CO. 

1919 






COPYBIGHT, 1919, 

By ALEXANDER KADISON 



MAR -3 i91S 

D CLASH 780 



TO 

I. D. 
FRIEND AND COMRADE TRUE 

I LOVINGLY INSCRIBE 
THIS LITTLE BOOK 



I 



i 



PREFACE 

"My Creed," "The Enigma of Life," 
"Lines to I. D.," and "From Metaphysics 
to Agnosticism" were originally published 
in the London Literary Guide for July, 
1914, October, 1915, July, 1916, and Jan- 
uary, 1918, respectively. "The Enigma 
of Life" was based upon a discussion led 
by the author, in the fall of 1913, in the 
columns of the New York Times. "The 
Golden Age of Faith and Filth" was first 
published — without notes, and with a few 
minor deviations from the reading of the 
author's manuscript — in the New York 
Truth Seeker for October 31, 1914. The 
manuscript reading (barring some half- 
dozen trivial alterations) is here restored; 
it has, moreover, been materially amplified 

7 



MEFACE 

by the addition of rather copious notes, 
which are given in the appendix and in- 
dicated in the text by superior figures. 
"The Summons to Prayer" originally ap- 
peared in the Truth Seeker for November 
14, 1914. "Piety and Plagiarism," ac- 
companied by a brief biographical note, 
was the first and leading article in the 
Truth Seeker for December 25, 1915. 
For the catchy sub-title, even more highly 
alliterative than the main title, the author 
was not responsible and can therefore 
claim no credit. 

The Editors of the two Rationalist 
journals named are hereby thanked for 
permission to repubhsh. 

It may be well to state that nothing 
appearing in the follov/ing pages is to be 
construed as having been prompted by 
hostility on the part of the writer to the 
personality of Jesus of Nazareth. Though 

8 



PREFACE 

the author holds no brief for Jesus the 
Son of God, or for his reputed Father, 
or for any gods that be or were or will be, 
he beheves that Jesus the Son of Man — 
the human Jesus, with whose name is asso- 
ciated the pure and lofty ethic of the 
Sermon on the Mount — will justly remain 
a source of inspiration to mankind when 
dogmatic Christianity has completely dis- 
appeared — ^as disappear it must. 

A. K. 

May, 1918, 



CONTENTS 



• 

Preface . 


PAGE 
7 


I. 


My Creed 


15 


II. 


From Metaphysics to Agnos- 
ticism . . . . 


16 


III. 


The Enigma of Life 


28 


IV. 


The Golden Age of Faith and 
Filth 


38 


V. 


Piety and Plagiarism 


63 


VI. 


Spinoza: A Tribute 


82 


VIL 


The Summons to Prayer 


92 


VIII. 

APPE^ 


Lines to I. D 

FDIX 


97 
99 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC 
SPECTACLES 



fSS^ Cree& 



Reason my final arbiter shall be; 

Blind faith is barred from my philosophy. 

Nor God nor Christ know I : my deity 

Is Man; my creed 
Bows to no fetish. Neither do I crave 
Salvation in a life beyond the grave: 
Far better strive mankind on earth to save 

Through word and deed. 



15 



FROM METAPHYSICS TO 
AGNOSTICISM 

"r I iHE great uncertainty I found in 
^ metaphysical reasonings," writes 
Benjamin Franklin, referring to his 
youthful speculations, "disgusted me, and 
I quitted that kind of reading and study 
for others more satisfactory." Are we to 
conclude from this that the future states- 
man, once having ceased applying himself 
to metaphysics, was thenceforth emanci- 
pated from the intellectual attitude which 
had previously accounted for the prac- 
tice? Apparently yes, but in reality no; 
for to the end of his long life — albeit he 
was not primarily a metaphysicist — 
Franklin remained, in spite of himself, in- 

16 



METAPHYSICS TO AGNOSTICISM 

delibly stamped with a metaphysical cast 
of mind. 

The mental experience of the celebrated 
American philosopher, far from being 
unique or even markedly out of the or- 
dinary, might be paralleled in the lives of 
countless other thinkers, both professional 
and amateur. Whether or not the phe- 
nomenon be traceable to temperamental 
factors of a basic and ineradicable nature, 
it cannot be denied that certain persons, 
once blessed or cursed — let the reader take 
his choice — ^with the desire to probe the 
cosmos to its very bottom, persist therein 
even after they have become convinced of 
the utter futility of such investigation. 
Like Tantalus of the myth, they must 
needs make the effort to drink time and 
time again, though time and time again 
they fail to quench their thirst. 

Can it be that they are, after all, never 

17 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

quite convinced that the quest of ultimate 
truth is a barren one? Can it be that in 
an ever-recurring doubt must be sought 
the reason for the constant renewal of a 
search which the mind repeatedly re- 
nounces as hopeless? It is not the search 
for deity with which I am here concerned: 
I assume that the majority of us are 
agreed in rejecting such doctrines as posit 
or profess to demonstrate the existence of 
a personal God, and in maintaining a 
definitely Agnostic attitude with regard to 
other more or less attenuated phases of 
Theism. What I have reference to is the 
fact that many thinking men and women, 
including not a few whose Negativism and 
Agnosticism in the realm of theology are 
unequivocal, seem to find it possible to 
take a positive mental stand as respects 
the field of general metaphysics — to give 
assent, that is, to what sometimes is aptly 

18 



METAPHYSICS TO AGNOSTICISM 

designated as a ''philosophical creed.'' 
Yet there can be no more justification, 
intellectually speaking, for assuming a 
positive position in the one case than in 
the other, since in both spheres the natural 
limitations of the human mind are equally 
pronounced. 

Shall I declare myself a Logical Monist 
or a Logical Pluralist? Shall I subscribe 
to Nominalism or to Platonic Realism? 
Which shall I regard as the ultimate 
criterion of truth — perception or logical 
coherence? Can I accept, or must I re- 
ject, the substance hypothesis? Is the 
doctrine of eternahsm valid, or must it 
give way to the doctrine of creative evo- 
lution? These and a host of other idle 
problems continually arise to trouble him 
whose mind is not released from bondage 
to metaphysical speculation. And what 
Sir Leslie Stephen, in An Agnostic'^ 

19 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

Apology y asserts of natural theology is 
applicable to the entire field of meta- 
physics — namely, that "there is not a 
single proof ... of which the negative 
has not been maintained as vigorously as 
the affirmative." "State any one proposi- 
tion," says Sir Leslie a little farther in 
the course of his essay, speaking now more 
particularly of metaphysical inquiry, "in 
which all philosophers agree, and I will 
admit it to be true; or any one which has 
a manifest balance of authority, and I will 
agree that it is probable. But so long as 
every philosopher flatly contradicts the 
first principles of his predecessors, why 
affect certainty? . . . There is no cer- 
tainty." It is, indeed, too true that every 
position in ontology and epistemology, 
without exception, resolves itself in the last 
analysis into nothing more than a mass of 
yerbiage, inasmuch as all positions are of 

20 



METAPHYSICS TO AGNOSTICISM 

necessity grounded upon axioms or a 
priori convictions — that is, upon unde- 
monstrable propositions. 

And herein consists the clue to the per- 
ennial difficulty involved in the endeavour 
to fathom absolute reality. Notwithstand- 
ing the fact that logic inevitably lies at 
the basis of all human reasoning, even 
logic, in the nature of the case, can never 
demonstrate its own fundamental prem- 
ises; ''and as it is logically prior to all 
other deduction, no other science can do 
so either" (W. T. Marvin). "Let there 
be light!" says man, and there is light; 
but only a glimmer. Darkness still rules 
on the face of the deep, and, for aught 
that can be conceived to the contrary, Avill 
ever continue her sway. 

As an example of the well-nigh incred- 
ible lengths to which even the most bril- 
liant of men may be led by continued 

21 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

wandering in the deceptive labyrinth of 
metaphysics, the recently issued work by 
Mark Twain, entitled The Mysterious 
Stranger,^ deserves to be cited. The 
book represents the renowned humourist's 
maturest thought on human life and on 
the universe, and, having been posthu- 
mously published, may, in a double sense, 
be termed his intellectual last will and 
testament. It is, in general, a masterly 
performance. Its trenchant and un- 
answerable criticisms of the prevailing 
creeds, together with the revelation it 
affords that the author in his later 
years abandoned his earlier Deism for 
Atheism "pure and undefiled," possess, 
of course, unusual interest for Ration- 
alists. However — and this is a point to 

* The Mysterious Stranger: A Romance. By Mark 
Twain. (Harper.) 151 pp., with illustrations; 7^. 6d. 
pet. [In the United States, $2.00 net.] 



METAPHYSICS TO AGNOSTICISM 

which I would here direct particular 
attention — this Atheism, strange to say, 
rested metaphj^sically, not upon a 
materialistic foundation, as Atheism 
almost invariably does, but upon what 
is perhaps the grossest paradox of sub- 
jective idealism! 

On the last page of the book the char- 
acter called Satan — who is really the 
philosopher-humourist in disguise — con- 
cluding the disclosure of the mighty secret 
which he has just revealed, declares: — 

**It is true, that which I have revealed to you: 
there is no God, no universe, no human race, no 
earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream. 
. . . Nothing exists but you. And you are but 
a thought . . . wandering forlorn among the 
empty eternities V 

Now, this pronouncement, taken in con- 
junction with the pages which immediately 
precede it, is simply a categorical avowal 

1?3 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

of the grotesque eighteenth-century doc- 
trine generally referred to under the name 
of Solipsism — the doctrine that the human 
mind can have valid knowledge of the 
existence of nothing but itself. Thus it 
appears that no less gifted and illustrious 
a person than the late Mark Twain was 
able to find a specious solution of the 
problems that beset him in the most fan- 
tastic of all speculative positions — a posi- 
tion from which the Solipsist himself 
retreats the moment he begins to expound 
his views to others. 

If we turn to the special problems of 
metaphysics which the various sciences — 
physics, chemistry, biology, and all the 
rest — have raised, the same inherent limi- 
tations of formal logic confront us that 
constitute the stumbling-block of general 
metaphysics. The sciences, moreover, are 
built very largely upon a body of concepts 

24 



METAPHYSICS TO AGNOSTICISM 

which, however well they satisfy the test 
of scientific utility (and that is all that is 
required of them), are notwithstanding 
but hypothetical entities that may or may 
not be truly existential. Prominent 
among these conceptual objects whose 
great justification is their value in explain- 
ing the facts of experience, but which none 
the less cannot claim phenomenal reality, 
are the atom, the molecule, and the un- 
dulating ether supposed to permeate all 
space. So eminently useful, so universally 
accepted, are these and other "construc- 
tions of the scientific imagination" that one 
is only too apt to lose sight of their true 
character, and to ascribe to them a meta- 
physical validity as far-reaching in its im- 
plications as its assumption is naive and 
unwarranted. 

Unlike religion, however, science in the 
main is modest, and does not profess abil- 

25 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

ity to penetrate the all-enshrouding veil. 
Those who most devote themselves to the 
pursuit of knowledge are best aware, to- 
day as in the past, how exceeding little 
humankind can ever hope to know. "Be- 
cause I have stirred a few grains of 
sand on the shore/' queried the vener- 
able French entomologist, Henri Fabre, 
shortly before his death at the age of 
ninety-one, "am I in a position to know 
the depths of the ocean? Life has un- 
fathomable secrets. Human knowledge 
will be erased from the archives of the 
world before we possess the last word that 
the gnat has to say to us. Scientifically, 
nature is a riddle without a definite so- 
lution to satisfy man's curiosity. Hypo- 
thesis follows hypothesis; the theoretical 
rubbish heap accumulates and truth ever 
eludes us. To know how not to know 
might well be the last word of wisdom." 

26 



METAPHYSICS TO AGNOSTICISM 

Aye, even so, by day ! But in the silent, 
solemn, sombre night, beneath the myriad 
million stars of heaven, one seems to hear 
the very voice of those who in their know- 
ledge-ignorance declared, of old time, that 
they knew not that they knew not!"^ 

* [For a well-stated — though, as I of course feel, ill- 
founded — adverse criticism of Fabre's position as indi- 
cated above (and, by implication, of the position taken 
in the last three paragraphs of this essay), see Literary 
Guide, Feb., 1918, p. 30.] 



27 



THE ENIGMA OF LIFE 

*' ALL roads lead to Rome" — so runs 
-^^^ the ancient dictum. How true 
the analogy that all mental paths, if but 
logically pursued, lead inevitably to Ag- 
nosticism! Approach and attack the 
riddle of the universe from whatsoever 
angle you please, and the result will al- 
ways be the same. As far as the attain- 
ment of a definite goal is concerned, it is 
quite immaterial whether one treat the 
cosmos itself as the point of departure of 
one's speculations and work inward, so to 
speak, towards the finite, or whether some 
concrete entity or entities be adopted as 
the starting-point, and one work outward 
in the direction of the infinite. To him 
who meditates in Reason's company it be- 

28 



l^HE ENIGMA OP LIJPE 

comes increasingly evident that, just as 
the mystery of the cosmos in its totality 
defies unravelment by man, so in its turn 
each and every constituent part of it re- 
fuses, sphinxlike, to yield up its eternal 
secret. 

From time immemorial, believers in an 
all-benevolent Providence have sought in 
vain to formulate a reasonable theory of 
the purpose and utility of some of the 
lower types of plant and animal life. 
Many living organisms are hideous and 
repulsive beyond description, and appear 
to have no value whatever; a great num- 
ber, indeed, are positively noxious. "Why, 
then, are they here?" asks the Theist. 
"Why were they created? How, in brief, 
can their existence be reconciled with the 
supposed goodness of God?" 

Modern teleologists are not the first, 
and, one may safely venture to assert, will 

29 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

not be the last, to propound this question, 
which is a far deeper one than it would 
on the face of it appear to be. Fifteen 
centuries ago St. Augustine, to account 
for the existence of repulsive and harmful 
organisms, confidently declared that both 
the animal and the vegetable kingdoms 
had incurred a divine curse in consequence 
of Adam's disobedience. About three 
centuries later Bede, in his Hecccemeron, 
confirmed and emphasised the view that 
''fierce and poisonous animals were created 
for terrifying man (because God foresaw 
that he would sin) , in order that he might 
be made aware of the final punishment of 
hell." In the twelfth century Peter Lom- 
bard, in the Sententioe, and later Martin 
Luther and John Wesley, expressed simi- 
lar views. 

But since geology, anthropology, and 
ethnology have irrefutably exploded the 

30 



THE ENIGMA OF LIFE 

legend of the creation of plants, animals, 
and man, and of the latter's sin and fall 
as narrated in Genesis, all the theological 
reasoning regarding animals and plants 
which was based on that story, and ad- 
hered to for centuries, is no longer tenable. 
And yet it must be borne in mind that 
Science herself has answered the question 
only negatively, not positively. 

A little reflection should make it mani- 
fest that the true answer (if there be any) 
is, and by the constitution of our faculties 
ever must remain, an impenetrable mys- 
tery to us, inasmuch as every attempted 
explanation is, after all, but a shallow 
guess which does not admit of verification. 
This conclusion, be it noted, conforms 
perfectly to the Spencerian* system of 

* [Though the main argument here advanced is not 
in the least affected, it may not be entirely irrelevant 
to state that the author no longer adheres to the 
metaphysical variety of Agnosticism expounded in 

31 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

philosophy, which teaches, among other 
things, that there is a certain boundary 
which the human intellect, by its very 
nature, cannot pierce, and that beyond 
this limit is the unknown — possibly the 
unknowable. 

So far, so good. But do we stop here? 
Assuredly not; this has been only a step- 
ping-stone; for a plant or an animal 
harmful to or disliked by man is certainly 
not a whit more in need of an explanation 
than man himself, who is harmful to and 
disliked by practically every other in- 
habitant of the earth. If we were seriously 
to endeavour to say in what way noxious 
and repulsive organisms might or might 

Spencer's First Principles, but rather — with certain 
modifications — to the purer and more nearly genuine 
Agnosticism taught and defended by Huxley. Cf. Benn, 
History of Modern Philosophy, pp. 170-171; Clodd, 
Thomas Henry Huxley, pp. 126, 188-190, 220-221, 
Literary Guide, Jan., 1902, p. 11; April, 1917, p. >64; 
Oct., 1917, p. 160.] 

32 



THE ENIGMA OF LIFE 

not be useful in their relation to mankind, 
we should do so at the risk of appearing 
naively anthropocentric. What we desire 
to be understood as stating is simply that 
we are unable to explain the existence of 
these organisms in any non-relative, ab- 
solute, and ultimate way; and not only is 
this statement applicable to the lower 
forms of life, but it applies with equal and 
undiminished force to the higher forms, 
not excluding man, as well. 

As for anthropocentricism and all it 
connotes. Agnostics should be the last to 
lose sight of the fact that it has already 
long been overthrown. Its doom was 
sounded by Copernicus and Galileo some 
centuries ago, for when the geocentric 
theory fell the anthropocentric, its sister 
theory, could not long survive; and it re- 
ceived its death-blow at the hands of 
Darwin at the time the doctrine of evolu- 

33 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

tion in its biological aspect was first enun- 
ciated. All the meaning, then, that these 
lines seek to convey is that, life itself being 
ultimately a mystery, we cannot hope to 
account ultimately for the presence of any 
living organism. 

''But," exclaims the teleologist in de- 
spair, "if the scientists, philosophers, and 
theologians are unable to provide any 
adequate reason for the existence of low 
forms of life that are repulsive and hideous 
and have no obvious purpose, and if there 
is no discoverable reason why even man 
should be here, then why propagate? 

"If there is no reason whatever for the 
existence of living organisms upon this 
lump of dirt as it hurls through space; if 
these living organisms are merely the by- 
product of motion, commotion, and mat- 
ter; if they exist only for a moment, just 
as a spark of light does when two pieces 

34 



THE ENIGMA OF LIFE 

of flint come together, why, in the name 
of common sense, should we do anything 
to assist such unjust and purposeless ac- 
tion on the part of Nature? 

"The little fish is eaten by the big fish; 
man eats the big fish, and Nature eats 
man. But since there is no discoverable 
reason for the enactment of this gruesome 
tragedy, why keep it going? To be sure, 
it may be said that man is dominated by 
instinct, just as the lower forms of animal 
life are ; but to make that assertion is really 
to commit an evasion. 

"I am not suggesting a reform,'' the 
teleologist hastens to add. "I am simply 
asking whether anyone can give a logical 
reason why the human race should be con- 
tinued at the frightful expense of the in- 
dividuals." 

A "logical reason" for the continuance 
of human existence ! The inane question, 

35 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

which is inseparably connected with the 
problem of existence in general, belongs 
properly to the realm of metaphysics, or 
ontology. Yet the metaphysicians, being 
only human, have never found it possible 
to answer it in a rational manner. All the 
scientists, all the philosophers, all the 
teleologists and theologians of the past, 
have failed to furnish us with a satisfac- 
tory explanation. And no wonder : being 
only finite, they have naturally failed to 
comprehend the infinite. 

The problem is manifestly beyond our 
scope. Socrates was right when he main- 
tained that human knowledge at its best 
amounts to very little indeed — nay, to 
practically nothing. And yet we humans 
are so conceited as to imagine that we — 
insignificant specks in the universe — may 
expect to solve any problem, however 
weighty or profound ! 

36 



THE ENIGMA OF LIFE 

What is the upshot of it all? Simply 
this : That life, in any and all its phases, 
is ultimately just as much a mystery to- 
day as it ever was, and, by virtue of our 
mental make-up, must necessarily remain 
a mystery. To attempt a solution of the 
inscrutable enigma is futility itself. In 
the words of Huxley : "Why trouble our- 
selves about matters of which, however im- 
portant they may be, we do know nothing, 
and can know nothing?" 



37 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF 
FAITH AND FILTH 

DURING the past fifty years the 
origins of Christianity have been 
the object of much critical investigation on 
the part of numerous scholars represent- 
ing various schools of thought. It is a 
matter of common knowledge that the re- 
sults of their researches have proved pain- 
fully disconcerting, to say the least, to the 
upholders of tradition and superstition. 

Strangely enough, however, precious 
little work has been done in that particu- 
lar realm which perhaps best reveals the 
amazing putridity of the faith of Christen- 
dom. "There is, if I mistake not," writes 
Lecky in his monumental History of 

38 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITH 

European Morals, "no department of 
literature the importance of which is more 
inadequately realised than the lives of the 
saints."^ The early saints were in a very 
real sense makers of Christianity, and it 
is therefore earnestly to be hoped that at 
no distant date a greater number of ad- 
vanced Freethinkers may devote them- 
selves to the study and exposition of the 
hagiographa than have done so until now. 
The acknowledged patriarch of mon- 
achism, St. Anthony (c. 251-c. 356),^ was 
born in Egypt.^ When he was about 
nineteen years of age* he took up his 
habitation in a grotto, and thereafter, till 
the day of his death, subjected himself to 
a mode of discipline of an uncompromis- 
ingly ascetic character. There are certain 
phases of his career which, though as- 
suredly not calculated to refine one's 
aesthetic sensibilities, may at any rate pos- 

39 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

sess some interest for the Rationalist 
reader. 

We learn from St. Athanasius (c. 296- 
373) , in his Life of St. Anthony, that the 
latter was "daily a martyr to his con- 
science, and contending in the conflicts of 
faith. . . . He had a garment of hair on 
the inside, while the outside was skin, 
which he kept until his end. And he 
neither bathed his body with water to free 
himself from filth, nor did he ever wash 
his feet, nor even endure so much as to 
put them in^ water, unless compelled by 
necessity."^ Furthermore, he never once 
succumbed to the intensely human weak- 
ness of removing or changing his clothing^ 
during a period of not less than eighty- 
six years P Such was St. Anthony, the 
illustrious father and founder of Christian 
monasticism.® 

There is no valid ground for question- 

40 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAlTtt 

ing the substantial accuracy of the passage 
adduced, for, in the words of the reverend 
editors of McClintock and Strong's stand- 
ard theological encyclopaedia, St. Atha- 
nasius "enjoyed a personal association with 
Anthony."^^ That we are justified in con- 
struing this last statement in no purely 
figurative sense will become evident from 
the manner in which the Archbishop of 
Alexandria^^ extols St. Anthony for his 
extreme squalidity. 

The eminent theologian goes on to say 
that his friend, on realising he was about 
to die, suummoned two of his followers who 
for a number of years had been serving in 
the capacity of attendants upon him, and 
gave them directions with regard to the 
final disposition of his body and of his 
effects. He bade them bury him and 
divide his garments. ''To Athanasius the 
bishop," said he, "give one sheepskin and 

41 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

the garment whereon I am laid, which he 
himself gave me new, but which with me 
has grown old. To Serapion the bishop 
give the other sheepskin, and keep the hair 
garment yourselves. "^^ St. Athanasius, 
one of the fortunate heirs, hereupon in- 
forms us that "each of those who received 
the sheepskin of the blessed Anthony and 
the garment worn by him guards it as a 
precious treasure. For even to look on 
them is as it were to behold Anthony; and 
he who is clothed in them seems with joy 
to bear his admonitions."^^ Though the 
saint does not state whether he actually 
saw fit to perform the delightful experi- 
ment suggested in the preceding sentence, 
the implication is, of course, that he did, 
for how could he otherwise have been 
qualified to make the assertion?^* 

"Even if this account is small compared 
with his merit," continues the writer, "still 

42 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITtt 

from this reflect how great Anthony, the 
man of God, was."^^ One of the reasons 
assigned for his greatness (or, it may be, 
for his being "the man of God") is the 
fact that St. Anthony "neither through 
old age was subdued by the desire of 
costly food, nor through the infirmity of 
his body changed the fashion of his cloth- 
ing, nor washed even his feet with water, 
and yet remained entirely free from harm. 
• . . He remained strong both in hands 
and feet; and while all men were using 
various foods, and washings and divers 
garments, he appeared more cheerful and 
of greater strength."^® 

Then St. Athanasius, that Father of 
the Church who has exerted an immeasur- 
ably profound influence upon Christianity 
and Christendom, he after whom is named 
that despicable creed which consigns to 
everlasting perdition those that do not 

43 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

keep the faith "whole and undefiled,"^^ 
concludes his encomium on him who so 
lamentably failed to keep his miserable 
body undefiled. To cap the climax, he 
enjoins his disciples to "read these words, 
therefore, to the rest of the brethren that 
they may learn what the life of monks 
ought to be."^^ It should be noted that 
the monastic spirit did indeed receive a 
powerful impulse from his various writ- 
ings. This was especially true of his 
biography of St. Anthony, since that work 
was translated into Latin, and hence made 
readily accessible to the great mass of the 
Roman people, at a very early date.^^ 

For a considerable length of time, how- 
ever, Christian asceticism was almost en- 
tirely restricted to the Eastern wing of 
the Church. It cannot be said to have 
made any appreciable headway in the 
West until the last quarter of the fourth 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITH 

century. Its rapid progress in the Roman 
Church from that period onward is 
attributable to St. Jerome (c. 340-420) 
more than to any other single individual 
that we might name. The stimulus im- 
parted by him to monasticism in particular 
rendered that institution one of the funda- 
mental features of the religion of Europe 
for about twelve centuries to come. Only 
at the Protestant Reformation, so-called, 
did the system meet with its first serious 
setback. 

It is not at all difficult to understand 
why it was that St. Jerome's potency in 
this direction should have proved so great 
and so lasting as it did. In the first place, 
we must remember that St. Jerome was 
one of the early teachers and expounders 
of Christian theology, and a Father of 
the Church. In the second place, his con- 
tribution to Christianity was exceedingly 

45 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

significant, so much so that since the early- 
Middle Ages he has been recognised by- 
Roman Catholics the world over as one of 
the original four Doctors of the Latin 
Church, the other three being St. Gregory 
the Great, St. Augustine, and St. Am- 
brose. Add to this the fact that not the 
least important of his services to the 
Church was his production of the Vulgate, 
and one need scarcely wonder that sub- 
sequent history has had to bear the stamp 
of his authority.^^ 

To St. Jerome matrimony was some- 
thing inherently vicious, and he constantly 
decried it. His enthusiasm for the ceno- 
bitic life knew no bounds; his quenchless 
zeal in promoting it brands him as a being 
utterly devoid of those finer and nobler 
affections which ordinarily emanate from 
the human heart. "My breast is not of 
iron nor my heart of stone,"^^ he wrote to 

46 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITH 

one who had determined to forgo the 
austerities of monastic seclusion,^^ but the 
immediate context behes his words: "Re- 
member the day on which you enlisted, 
when, buried with Christ in baptism, you 
swore fealty to him, declaring that for his 
sake you would spare neither father nor 
mother. . . . Should your little nephew 
hang on your neck, pay no regard to him; 
should your mother with ashes on her hair 
and garments rent show you the breasts 
at which she nursed you, heed her not; 
should your father prostrate himself on the 
threshold, trample him under foot and go 
your way. With dry eyes fly to the 
standard of the cross. In such cases 
cruelty is the only true affection. . . . 
"Now it is a widowed sister who throws 
her caressing arms around you. Now it 
is the slaves, your foster-brothers, who 
cry: 'To what master are you leaving 

47 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

us?' Now it is a nurse bowed with age, 
and a body-servant loved only less than a 
father, who exclaim: 'Only wait till we 
die and follow us to our graves!' Per- 
haps, too, an aged mother, with sunken 
bosom and furrowed brow, recalling the 
lullaby with which she once soothed you, 
adds her entreaties to theirs. The learned 
may call you, if they please, 'the sole sup- 
port and pillar of your house.'^^ The love 
of God and the fear of hell will easily 
break such bonds. Scripture, you will 
argue, bids us obey our parents. Yes, but 
whoso loves them more than Christ loses 
his own soul."^^ 

What a striking similarity one detects 
between this infamous passage and an- 
other not less ominous one occurring in 
the Gospel of St. Matthew P' And this is 
an outgrowth of that religion whose key- 
note, they say, is Love ! 

48 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITH 

In a desert in the vicinity of Antioch 
St. Jerome lived as an anchoret from 374 
to 379,'^ "rolling in sackcloth and ashes/'^^ 
to employ his own expression. He was 
firmly convinced that "chains, squalor, and 
long hair are by right tokens of sorrow."^® 
In what is probably his most celebrated 
epistle^^ he affords us an insight into what 
we might euphemistically term the nega- 
tive character of his cleanliness. "Sack- 
cloth disfigured my unshapely limbs," he 
proudly declares, "and my skin from 
long neglect had become as black as an 
Ethiopian's."^^ In 386 the saint became 
the head of a monastery at Bethlehem, 
where he passed — apart from a period 
of about two years — ^the remainder of his 
life.^^ 

While dwelling in the desert St. Jerome 
composed a brief treatise on St. Paul the 
Hermit ( ?c. 228-c. 341) .'' In the course 

49 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

of this tract the author admiringly re- 
counts the case of certain "monks of whom 
one was shut up for thirty years and lived 
on barley bread and muddy water, while 
another in an old cistern . . . kept him- 
self alive on five dried figs a day."^^ 

As for St. Paul, the subject of the dis- 
course, it may be said, for one thing, that 
he had the pleasant habit of keeping "his 
grey hairs unkempt. "^^ Not without sig- 
nificance, as respects the odour of sanctity 
which may be presumed to have pervaded 
his presence, is his last request, addressed 
to St. Anthony of Egypt, whose acquaint- 
ance we have already made. "Be so 
good," he asked, "as to go and fetch the 
cloak Bishop Athanasius gave you, to 
wrap my poor body in."^^ As St. Jerome 
explains the matter, he solicited this favour 
"that he might soften his friend's regrets 
at his decease."^® 

60 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITH 

Equally naive is the Roman Breviary^s 
reference to the filthiness of St. Hilarion 
(c. 291-371), who likewise was a con- 
temporary of St. Anthony^^ and who 
initiated Christian monastic life in Pales- 
tine.^^ Under pain of incurring mortal 
sin and the consequent forfeiture of 
"divine grace," the Catholic clergy are 
obliged, on the feast-day of this disgusting 
individual/^ to recite either publicly or 
privately ^^ the edifying fact that "humi 
cubabat. Nee vero saccum, quo semel 
amictus est, unquam aut lavit, aut mutavit, 
cum supervacaneum esse diceret, mun- 
ditias in cilicio quserere."*^ Rendered into 
our vernacular, this imposing array of 
unciceronian phrases means merely that 
St. Hilarion ''was used to sleep on the 
ground. The piece of sackcloth wherewith 
alone he clad himself he never washed and 
never changed, saying that haircloth was 

61 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

a thing not worth the trouble of cleanli- 
ness."^^ 

And yet, mechanically echoing the 
avowed sentiments of such dignitaries of 
the Church as the late Cardinal New- 
man/^ the devout and unenlightened laity, 
to the overwhelming majority of whom 
Latin, so to speak, is Greek, exult in the 
lives of their saints as recorded in the 
Breviary, and in their ignorance are 
happy. Reader, forgive them; for they 
know not what they do ! 

As we have already had occasion to ob- 
serve, the underlying aim at the basis of 
St. Jerome's activities, literary and other- 
wise, was the widespread propagation of 
communistic asceticism. To this end he 
pubHshed, in the year 390, his Life of St. 
Hilarion/'^ to which we owe most of our 
detailed information respecting that per- 
sonage, and from which a few quotations 

62 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITH 

may not be thought inopportune in this 
connection. 

After having spent two months in the 
company of St. Anthony/^ who provided 
him with the customary eremitic apparel/^ 
St. Hilarion withdrew from society at the 
age of fifteen.^^ He idohsed his host to 
such a degree that, when as an old man 
he visited the spot where St. Anthony had 
passed away, he 'Svould He upon the 
saint's bed and, as though it were still 
warm, would affectionately kiss it."^^ He 
seems to have been accustomed to pray 
with his head literally bowed in the dust,"^* 
a practice still in vogue among many 
Oriental peoples at the present day. 

St. Hilarion "particularly abhorred 
such monks as . . . were careful about 
expense, or raiment, or some other of 
those things which pass away with the 
world."^^ "He shaved his hair once a year 

53 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

on Easter Day, and until his death was 
accustomed to lie on the bare ground or 
on a bed of rushes. The sackcloth which 
he had once put on he never washed, and 
he used to saj^ that it was going too far to 
look for cleanliness in goats' haircloth. 
Nor did he change his shirt unless the one 
he wore was almost in rags."^^ 

In his thirty-fifth year St. Hilarion 
found "his eyes growing dim and his whole 
body shrivelled with a scabby eruption and 
dry mange."^^ To remedy these disorders, 
he had recourse to what would to-day be 
regarded as an unusually odd expedient: 
"he added oil to his former food and up 
to the sixty-third year of his life followed 
this temperate course. "^^ 

About a year after his burial St. Hila- 
rion's corpse was surreptitiously removed 
by his friend Hesychius from the island 
of Cyprus, whence it was transferred to 

54 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITH 

the monastery at Majuma, in Palestine.^* 
The selfsame biographer who is respon- 
sible for the glowing description of St. 
Hilarion's reprehensible bodily habits, de- 
spite all he has written, would have us 
believe that the mourners present at the 
reinterment beheld "the whole body as 
perfect as if ahve, and so fragrant with 
sweet odours that one might suppose it to 
have been embalmed" P^ 

But a still more amusing ''miracle" re- 
lated of the saint is a ridiculous incident 
for which the distinguished Latin Doctor 
offers the matter-of-course explanation 
that ''the old man was enabled by grace 
to tell from the odour of bodies and gar- 
ments, and the things which anyone had 
touched, by what demon or with what vice 
the individual was distressed. "^^ To be 
sure, this sounds extremely childish to 
modern ears, but then we should bear in 

56 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

mind that Christ himself was a staunch 
believer in the existence of devils;" and, 
as for odours, surely no one will doubt 
that St. Hilarion's personal experience 
would naturally have tended to endow him 
with skill in matters olfactory, assuming 
even that he had not had the inestimable 
advantage of "divine grace." 

If anyone is heard to give utterance to 
the complacent and hackneyed remark 
that ''cleanliness is next to godliness,"^^ the 
obvious and unanswerable reply is that the 
truth of the dictum does not shine forth 
conspicuously in the lives and writings of 
Christendom's most venerated saints. An- 
other case in point, in addition to those 
already enumerated, is that of St. Abra- 
ham (sixth century). What little is 
known of this "perfect and admirable 
man"^^ is derived chiefly from the Life of 
St. Abraham the Hermit and the Life of 

56 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITH 

St. Mary the Harlot, both from the pen 
of St. Ephraem (sixth century) .^^ 

St. Abraham was twenty years old^^ 
when he deserted his bride to enjoy the 
blessings of an ascetic existence.^^ It was, 
as St. Ephraem intimates, by "leading the 
life of an angel on earth"^^ for half a 
century^* that "at its consummation he 
earned perpetual glory."^^ "Who that 
looked at his face, which displayed the 
image of sanctity, did not feel the desire 
of seeing him more often ?"^® 

St. Abraham's virtues simply eluded 
comprehension;^^ so manifold were they 
that (to quote from the last verse of the 
fourth Gospel) , "if they should be written 
every one, I suppose that even the world 
itself would not contain the books that 
should be written." "Oil did not come 
near his body ; his face, or for that matter 
even his feet, were never washed from the 

57 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

day of his conversion. . . . His appear- 
ance was just like an unfading flower, and 
in his face the purity of his soul was dis- 
cernible. ... In all the fifty years of 
his abstinence he did not change the cover- 
ing of goats' hair in which he had been 
clothed."^^ 

St. Ephraem claims for the relics of St. 
Abraham a remarkable efficacy in healing 
the most deadly maladies. An invalid, re- 
gardless of the nature of his ailment, had 
but to touch the vestments of the holy 
man, when, presto! ''without any delay 
health followed. "^^ It may be interesting 
to observe in passing that St. Abraham 
was apparently conscious of no incon- 
gruity in denouncing a devil that he 
imagined threatened to possess him, as 
nothing short of a "most filthy demon" !^^ 
Here, it must be confessed, one's sym- 
pathies are (as usual) with the devil 

58 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITH 

rather than with the saint, whom the Al- 
mighty, forsooth, had failed to enrich with 
a sense alike of humour and of justice. 

Examples similar to those which have 
here been touched upon might be multi- 
plied indefinitely. These are by no means 
isolated instances. On the contrary, they 
represent typical and in the main faith- 
fuF^ portraits of all the early saints, who 
in turn influenced by their austerities the 
lives of innumerable successors.^^ Un- 
pleasant though the truth may be to some, 
it is nevertheless a fact that Christianity 
established itself upon a groundwork of 
asceticism. If the foundation is so rotten 
— and the term is used advisedly — ^what 
shall one say of the superstructure? 

Even St. James, "the brother of the 
Lord"^^ (d. c. 63),^* was in respect of 
cleanliness not a whit better than the rest, 
according to Eusebius (c. 260-c. 340) , the 

69 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

"Father of Church History/"' who cites 
the testimony of St. Hegesippus (jB. c. 
150-c. 180). "A razor never went upon 
his head, he anointed not himself with oil, 
and did not use a bath."^^ His practice 
in the last-named respect is followed at 
the present day by the inmates of mon- 
asteries and nunneries in Roman Catholic 
lands (though not in "missionary coun- 
tries" like England and the United 
States), perhaps, as Mr. Joseph McCabe 
wittily suggests, because "le bon Dieu 
vous verrait!"^^ 

St. Simeon Stylites (c. 390-459), whose 
excesses far surpassed those of any other 
in the calendar of the canonised, was on 
that very account the most revered of them 
all. When Tennyson desired to write a 
poem depicting the extreme rigour de- 
manded by Christian asceticism, he chose 
as the subject of his verses St. Simeon,^^ 

60 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITH 

the personification of everything foul and 
repulsive/^ 

None can ever appreciate in their total- 
ity the baneful effects of the theological 
doctrine that salvation of the soul is de- 
pendent upon mortification of ''its worth- 
less shell," the body. It is no mere coin- 
cidence that the dismal ages of faith were 
filled with plagues and pestilences without 
number. It is no mere coincidence that 
the employment of natural means in 
averting and curing disease was considered 
a contravention of the will of God. In the 
light of countless facts, it is not at all 
astonishing that just in proportion as 
Christian belief diminished, the length of 
human life increased.^^ 

The Day of Judgment has come at last, 
but the Place of Judgment is here on 
earth. Christianity is on trial. Man, the 
Supreme Judge, has already condemned 

61 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

her on many counts, and she is now 
doomed to destruction and final disso- 
lution.* Let us, the plaintiffs, not omit 
to add ASCETICISM to the endless list of 
her sins.f 

* [Cf. Preface, last paragraph.] 

t [The small superior figures, as has elsewhere been 
indicated, refer to the notes which are given in the 
appendix.] 



62 



PIETY AND PLAGIARISM* 

SOME time ago Franklin Steiner^s ex- 
posure of the Rev. William Sunday 
in the columns of the Truth Seeker 
evoked considerable comment from the 
New York Times, the New York Herald, 
the Philadelphia Inquirer, and various 
other newspapers in the land. The well- 
known evangehst, it will be recalled, had 
had the supreme audacity to steal an en- 
tire oration almost verbatim from the 
works of the late Colonel Ingersoll — 
present address, according to the evangel- 
ist, care of the Devil. Yet it must be said 
in justice to "Billy" Sunday that he is 
not the only divine guilty of "lifting" long 

* [This title was originally followed by a sub-title 
reading: "Again Ingersoll Is the Victim of a Preacher's 
Penchant for Purloining." — See Preface.] 

63 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

passages bodily from IngersoU. Another 
one who has committed the same offence 
is the Rev. Dr. Madison C. Peters, one 
of Brooklyn's most prominent clergymen. 
Both gentlemen, strangely enough, have 
denounced the very infidel whose thoughts 
neither hesitated to steal. 

The present writer has in his possession 
a book by the Rev. Dr. Peters, entitled 
The Beautiful Way of Life: Pictures of 
Happy Homes and Glimpses of Heavenly 
Mansions. Its avowed purpose, as stated 
in the preface, was to assist the reader in 
finding his "earthly life a Path of Glory, 
and at last an eternal resting-place be- 
neath God's Throne." The Beautiful 
Way of Life is replete with pious refer- 
ences to God, Jesus, Heaven, Salvation, 
etc., and includes the usual clerical 
"proofs" that the opinions of Franklin and 
Jefferson were not really heterodox, as 

64 



PIETY AND PLAGIARISM 

Freethinkers maliciously maintain. So 
much by way of introduction. 

On pages 303 and 304 of this treasure- 
house of orthodox wisdom is to be found 
a selection entitled "Love vs. Glory," to 
which no name is appended. In the 
preface to the book the Rev. Dr. Peters 
expressly declares that ''The no-name 
articles are either from the author's pen 
or anonymous." Inasmuch as the passage 
in question is written in the first person, 
the natural implication is that it is from 
the "author's" pen. Comparison, how- 
ever, with two of the most famous of 
Ingersoll's lectures* yields the following 
interesting "deadly parallels": — 

REV. DR. PETERS INGERSOLL 

A little while ago I A little while ago I 

stood by the grave of the stood by the tomb of the 
old Napoleon — a mag- first Napoleon, a mag- 

* I quote from the unauthorised pamphlet-versions cur- 

65 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 



REV. DR. PETERS 

nificent tomb of gilt and 
gold^ fit almost for a 
dead deity — and gazed 
upon the sarcophagus of 
black Egyptian marble, 
where rest at last the 
ashes of the restless 
man. I leaned over the 
balustrade and thought 
about the career of the 
greatest soldier of the 
modern world. I saw 
him walking upon the 
banks of the Seine, con- 
templating suicide — I 
saw him at Toulon — I 
saw him putting down 
the mob in the streets of 
Paris — I saw him at the 
head of the army of 
Italy- — I saw him cross- 
ing the bridge of Lodi 
with the tricolour in his 
hand — I saw him in 
Egypt in the shadows of 
the pyramids — I saw 
him conquer the Alps 



INGERSOLL 

nificent tomb of gilt and 
gold, fit almost for a 
dead deity, and here was 
a great circle, and in the 
bottom there, in a sar- 
cophagus, rested at last 
the ashes of that restless 
man. I looked at that 
tomb, and I thought 
about the career of the 
greatest soldier of the 
modern world. As I 
looked in imagination I 
could see him walking 
up and down the banks 
of the Seine contemplat- 
ing suicide. I could see 
him at Toulon; I could 
see him at Paris, putting 
down the mob; I could 
see him at the head of 
the army of Italy; I 
could see him crossing 
the bridge of Lodi, with 
the tricolour in his 
hand; I saw him in 
Egypt, fighting battles 



rent at the time of the Rev. Dr. Peters' plagiarism and 
later collected under the title: Col B. O. IngersolVs 
44. Lectures. The authorised Dresden edition of Inger- 
solFs works had not yet been published. 

66 



PIETY AND PLAGIARISM 



REV. DR. PETERS 

and mingle the eagles of 
France with the eagles 
of the crags. I saw him 
at Marengo — at Ulm 
and Austerlitz. I saw 
him in Russia^ where the 
infantry of the snow 
and the cavalry of the 
wild blast scattered his 
legions like winter's 
withered leaves. I saw 
him at Leipsic in defeat 
and disaster — driven by 
a million bayonets back 
upon Paris — clutched 
like a wild beast — ban- 
ished to Elba. I saw 
him escape and retake 
an empire by the force 
of his genius. I saw 
him upon the frightful 
field of Waterloo^ where 
chance and fate com- 
bined to wreck the for- 
tunes of their former 
king. And I saw him 
at St. Helena, with his 
hands crossed behind 
him, gazing out upon the 
sad and solemn sea. I 
thought of the orphans 
and widows he had made 



INGERSOLL 

under the shadow of the 
Pyramids; I saw him 
returning; I saw him 
conquer the Alps, and 
mingle the eagles of 
France with the eagles 
of Italy; I saw him at 
Marengo, I saw him at 
Austerlitz ; I saw him in 
Russia where the in- 
fantry of the snow and 
the blast smote his 
legions, when death rode 
the icy winds of winter. 
I saw him at Leipsic; 
hurled back upon Paris ; 
banished ; and I saw him 
escape from Elba and 
retake an empire by the 
force of his genius. I 
saw him at the field of 
Waterloo, where fate 
and chance combined to 
wreck the fortunes of 
their former king. I 
saw him at St. Helena 
with his hands behind 
his back, gazing out 
upon the sad and solemn 
sea, and I thought of all 
the widows he had made, 
of all the orphans^ of 



67 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 



REV. DR. PETERS 

— of the tears that had 
been shed for his glory, 
and of the only woman 
who ever loved him, 
pushed from his heart 
by the cold hand of am- 
bition. And I said I 
would rather have been 
a French peasant, and 
worn wooden shoes; I 
would rather have lived 
in a hut with a vine 
growing over the door, 
and the grapes growing 
purple in the kisses of 
the autumn sun ; I would 
rather have been that 
poor peasant with my 
loving wife by my side, 
knitting as the day died 
out of the sky — with my 
children upon my knees 
and their arms about 
me ; I would rather have 
been that man and gone 
down to the tongueless 
silence of the dreamless 
dust, than to have been 
that imperial impersona- 
tion of force and murder 
known as Napoleon the 
Qreat. And so I would, 

68 



INGERSOLL 

all the tears that had 
been shed for his glory; 
and I thought of the 
woman, the only woman 
who ever loved him, 
pushed from his heart 
by the cold hand of am- 
bition — and I said to 
myself, as I gazed, I 
would rather have been 
a French peasant and 
worn wooden shoes, and 
lived in a little hut with 
a vine running over the 
door and the purple 
grapes growing red in 
the amorous kisses of 
the autumn sun — I 
would rather have been 
that poor French peas- 
ant, to sit in my door, 
with my wife knitting 
by my side and my 
children upon my knees 
with their arms around 
my neck — I would 
rather have lived and 
died unnoticed and un- 
known except by those 
who loved me, and gone 
down to the voiceless 
silence of the dreamless 



PIETY AND PLAGIARISM 



REV. DR. PETERS 

ten thousand thousand 
times. — ''Beautiful Way 
of Life/' pp. 803-804.. 



INGERSOLL 

dust — I would rather 
have been that French 
peasant than to have 
been that imperial im- 
personation of force and 
murder vrho covered Eu- 
rope with blood and 
tears. — '^Intellectual 
Development.^' 



Now compare the Rev. Dr. Peters' 
plagiarised selection with another version 
of IngersoU's meditations at the tomb of 
Napoleon, and most of the minor differ- 
ences occurring in the above-quoted par- 
allel are immediately accounted for: — 



REV. DR. PETERS 



INGERSOLL 



A little while ago I A little while ago I 

stood by the grave of the stood by the grave of the 
old Napoleon — a mag- old Napoleon^ a mag- 



nificent tomb of gilt and 
gold^ fit almost for a 
dead deity — and gazed 
upon the sarcophagus of 
black Egyptian marble, 
where rest at last the 
ashes of the restless 



nificent tomb^ fit for a 
dead deity almost^ and 
gazed in the great circle 
at the bottom of it. 
In the sarcophagus of 
black Egyptian marble 
at last rest the ashes of 



69 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 



REV. DR. PETERS 

man. I leaned over the 
balustrade and thought 
about the career of the 
greatest soldier of the 
modern world. I saw 
him walking upon the 
banks of the Seine, con- 
templating suicide — I 
saw him at Toulon^— I 
saw him putting down 
the mob in the streets of 
Paris — I saw him at the 
head of the army of 
Italy — I saw him cross- 
ing the bridge of Lodi ing the bridge of Lodi. 
with the tricolour in his I saw him in Egypt 
hand — I saw him in fighting the battle of the 
Egypt in the shadows of pyramids. I saw him 
the pyramids — I saw cross the Alps and 
him conquer the Alps mingle the eagles of 
and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles 
France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him 
of the crags. I saw him at Austerlitz. I saw 



INGERSOLL 

that restless man. I 
looked over the balus- 
trade, and I thought 
about the career of 
Napoleon. I could see 
him walking upon the 
banks of the Seine con- 
templating suicide. I 
saw him at Toulon. I 
saw him putting down 
the mob in the streets of 
Paris. I saw him at the 
head of the army of 
Italy. I saw him cross- 



at Marengo — at Ulm 
and Austerlitz. I saw 
him in Russia, where the 
infantry of the snow 



him with his army scat- 
tered and dispersed be- 
fore the blast. I saw 
him at Leipsic when his 



and the cavalry of the army was defeated and 

wild blast scattered his he was taken captive. I 

legions like winter's saw him escape. I saw 

withered leaves. I saw him land again upon 

him at Leipsic in defeat French soil, and retake 

70 



PIETY AND PLAGIARISM 



REV. DR. PETERS 



INGERSOLL 



and disaster — driven by an empire by the force 

a million bayonets back of his own genius. I saw 

upon Paris — clutched him captured once more, 

like a wild beast — ban- and again at St. Helena 

ished to Elba. I saw with his arms behind 

him escape and retake him, gazing out upon the 

an empire by the force sad and solemn sea ; and 

of his genius. I saw I thought of the orphans 



him upon the frightful 
field of Waterloo, where 
chance and fate com- 
bined to wreck the for- 
tunes of their former 
king. And I saw him 
at St. Helena, with his 
hands crossed behind 
him, gazing out upon the 
sad and solemn sea. I 
thought of the orphans 
and widows he had made 
— of the tears that had 
been shed for his glory, 
and of the only woman 
who ever loved him, 
pushed from his heart 
by the cold hand of am- 
bition. And I said I 
would rather have been 
a French peasant, and 
worn wooden shoes; I 
would rather have lived 
in a hut with a vine 



and widows he had 
made. I thought of the 
tears that had been shed 
for his glory. I thought 
of the only woman who 
ever loved him, who had 
been pushed from his 
heart by the cold hand 
of ambition; and as I 
looked at the sarcopha- 
gus I said I would 
rather have been a 
French peasant and 
worn w^ooden shoes ; I 
would rather have lived 
in a hut, with a vine 
growing over the door 
and the grapes growing 
and ripening in the 
autumn sun; I would 
rather have been that 
peasant, with my wife 
by my side and my chil- 
dren upon my knees 



71 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

REV. DR. PETERS INGERSOLL 

growing over the door, twining their arms of 
and the grapes growing affection about me; I 
purple in the kisses of would rather have been 
the autumn sun; I would that poor French peas- 
rather have been that ant and gone down at 
poor peasant with my last to the eternal pro- 
loving wife by my side, miscuity of the dust, 
knitting as the day died followed by those who 
out of the sky — with my loved me ; I would a 
children upon my knees thousand times rather 
and their arms about have been that French 
me; I would rather have peasant than that im- 
been that man and gone perial personative [im- 
down to the tongueless personation] of force 
silence of the dreamless and murder; and so I 
dust, than to have been would ten thousand thou- 
that imperial impersona- sand times. — ''Liberty 
tion of force and murder of Man, Woman, and 
known as Napoleon the Child/' 
Great. And so I would, 
ten thousand thousand 
times. — '^Beautiful Way 
of Life/' pp. 303-304, 



It is manifest that both the lecture on 
Intellectual Development" and that on 
''The Liberty of Man, Woman, and 
Child" formed the basis of the Rev. Dr. 

72 



a 



PIETY AND PLAGIARISM 

Peters' recast version of IngersolFs rev- 
erie as printed in The Beautiful Way of 
Life. Curious as to what the clergyman 
might say in his defence, I sent him a letter 
containing the following query and en- 
closed a stamped and addressed envelope 
for his reply: — 

* 'Would you kindly inform me, if it is not too 
much trouble, in what year The Beautiful Way of 
Life was first published? I was especially inter- 
ested in the excellent and inspiring lines on pp. 
303-304, entitled Xove vs. Glory/ and should very 
much like to find out whether they are from your 
pen or anonymous. I observe that in the preface 
to the book you remark that the nameless articles 
are either one or the other." 

The somewliat unusual question, it 
seems, aroused the clergyman's suspicions, 
as I had indeed expected it would. In- 
stead of making a clean breast of the 
matter, he immediately sent me the follow- 
ing extraordinary reply: — 

73 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

'*My dear Mr. Kadison: In reply to your in- 
quiry I beg to say that the article to which you 
have reference was not from my pen. I do not 
know how it happened that due credit was not 
given. The lines are from Robert G. IngersoU. 
The book, as you know, is a compilation which I 
hurriedly prepared when I was a young man of 
about 26. Those were the days of subscription 
books which were composed largely of the sayings 
of distinguished writers, I had thought there were 
none in existence, as it was published nearly thirty 
years ago. 

**I am enclosing you a number of cards which 
will take you to manufacturers and wholesalers 
where you can buy direct at the same price the 
dealers buy, and in addition I am adding a few 
discount cards. Out of my lectures on the high 
cost of living, this cooperative movement has grown 
and it means a saving of one-third to one-half to 
people who are using the cards. Write your name 
and address on the cards and retain the same after 
using.'' 

[Here follow the titles of some of the books by 
the Rev. Dr. Peters.] 

"Very sincerely yours, 
"[Signed] Madison C. Peters." 

Why is the Rev. Dr. Peters so con- 

74 



fiKTY AND PLAGIARISM 

ciliatory? Why the unsolicited rebate 
coupons? What, in the name of common 
sense, have rebate coupons to do with the 
question at issue? If I know anything 
at all about ministerial psychology, the 
Rev. Dr. Peters' unseasonable and amus- 
ing outburst of generosity, otherwise so 
inexplicable, is to be explained only on the 
theory that the minister, in his eagerness 
to propitiate me, hit upon the extraor- 
dinary scheme of presenting me with the 
equivalent of money as a modest induce- 
ment to refrain from taking any un- 
pleasant steps I might have in mind. 

The Rev, Dr. Peters protests that he 
does not know how it happened that due 
credit was not given. Yet the solution of 
the riddle is only too simple. In a book 
intended for circulation exclusively among 
very orthodox folk of a generation ago it 
would obviously never do to let it be 

75 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

known that perhaps the most remarkable 
literary gem in the entire collection was 
from the crown of the infidel of infidels. 

The Rev. Dr. Peters apologetically de- 
clares that the book was hurriedly pre- 
pared. Yet both the absence of misprints 
and the positively beautiful appearance of 
the work testify to its having, on the con- 
trary, been prepared with exceptional 
care. Passage after passage, moreover, is 
attributed to such champions of religion 
as Talmage, Beecher, and Margaret 
Sangster. Unfortunate, is it not, that 
just IngersolVs name should have hap- 
pened to be omitted? 

To be quite frank, the writer of this 
article would have been only too willing 
to let bygones be bygones and to refrain 
from exposing the Rev. Dr. Peters as a 
literary thief, had it not been for the ex- 
istence of two circumstances which made 

76 



PIETY AND PLAGIARISM 

it impossible to suppress the truth even in 
the interest of charity. The original draft 
of this article has been in the possession 
of the present writer for half a year, and 
his decision to have the article published 
is therefore not a hasty one, but, on the 
contrary, has been arrived at after perhaps 
longer deliberation than was necessary. 

First: In the year 1892 {after the pub- 
lication of The Beautiful Way of Life) 
there occurred the famous IngersoU con- 
troversy in the course of which, after an 
unsuccessful attempt to boycott the New 
York Evening Telegram for having pub- 
lished the Agnostic orator's "Christmas 
Sermon," a number of clergymen of 
various denominations attacked the views 
of IngersoU, who, needless to say, made 
the masterly rejoinders only an IngersoU 
could make. Among those who assailed 
the distinguished heretic with especial 

77 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

venom and malignity was the Rev, Dr. 
Madison C. Peters. He it was who was 
able to find no more delicate epithets to 
^PPly to Ingersoll's arguments than 
"sneers," "foamings," and "ravings." 
Ingersoll, in his reply, exemplified the 
gentleness and gentlemanliness which his 
assailant preached. 

Second, and more important: The Rev. 
Dr. Peters, as I discovered on further 
examination, is a practised plagiarist — 
that is to say, plagiarism is apparently a 
habit with him — and some of his literary 
thefts are of recent origin. In a book by 
him published and copyrighted as late as 
1908 I have detected entire pages of 
plagiarised matter. Here is a choice 
specimen: — 

REV. DR. PETERS J. O. PECK 

A man without en- A man without en- 

thusiasm is an engine thusiasm is an engine 

78 



PIETY AND PLAGIARISM 



REV. DR. PETERS 

without steam. Your 
brain [sic] will not 
move unless the water is 
boiling. Better boil over 
than not boil at all. 
Don't bank the fires in 
your furnace. To a 
man sneering at excite- 
ment, a Western editor 
pithily replied: *' There 
is only one thing done in 
this world without ex- 
citement, and that is to 
rot." Enthusiasm gen- 
erates the impulse that 
drives manhood on to 
noble achievements. It 
arouses a supernatural 
heroism in one's own 
forces. It is the driving 
force of character; it 
makes strong men; it 
arouses unsuspected 
sources of ability. The 
man without enthusiasm 
in his work has lost 
the race of life before 
starting. — Beginning of 
Chap. VI, ''The Strenu- 
ous Career" (Copyright, 
1908). [The fact that 
the copyright is entered. 



J. O. PECK 

without steam. Your 
train won't move unless 
the water is boiling. 
. . . Don't bank the 
fires in your furnace. 
Pithily said a Western 
editor to a man sneering 
at excitement: ''There is 
only one thing done in 
this world without ex- 
citement." "What is 
that.>" "To rot!" he 
replied. ... It [en- 
thusiasm] generates the 
invincible pulses that 
hurl manhood on noble 
achievements. Bulwer 
says: "A certain degree 
of temerity is a power. 
... It arouses a super- 
natural heroism in one's 
own forces." Enthu- 
siasm is the driving 
force of character. En- 
thusiasm makes strong 
men . . . arouses un- 
suspected sources of 
ability. A young man or 
woman without enthusi- 
asm in the work of life 
has lost the race before 
starting. — Article by 



79 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

REV. DR. PETERS J. O. PECK 

not in the name of the one J. 0. Peck, in 
author, but in that of Peters' "Beautiful Way 
one of the publishers, of Life/' pp. 271, 272, 
so far from mitigating, 273, (Sentences rear- 
only aggravates the of- ranged, where neces- 
fence of plagiarism; for sary, to conform to the 
it involves the addi- order of the Rev. Dv. 
tional offence of selling Peters' plagiarised ver- 
stolen goods — and pre- sion of 1908.) 
sumably under false 
pretences !] 

The above is only a single instance 
chosen at random from among many 
similar ones that came to my notice. Prac- 
tically the whole of pages 30, 31, and 32 
of The Strenuous Career, for example, 
were "borrowed" without acknowledg- 
ment from the same article by J. O. Peck. 
The Rev. Dr. Peters evidently thought 
it a safe operation to make wholesale 
plagiarisms from an article by an obscure 
writer of a generation or more ago; by 
his own inadvertent admission in his letter 

80 



PIETY AND PLAGIARISM 

to me, he was under the impression that 
the book containing that article together 
with the acknowledgment of its authorship 
was no longer extant. 

There may be more cases of plagiarism 
in other works allegedly by the Rev. Dr. 
Peters; speaking for myself, I should be 
astonished if there were not. I have not, 
however, gone to the trouble of finding out 
definitely. Sufficient unto the day is the 
evil thereof. 

Dr. Madison C. Peters, stand up! 
"Billy" Sunday, rise! Now, Reverend 
Gentlemen, shake hands!* 

* [Among the publications which commented on this 
article were the San Francisco Star and the London 
Freethinker. For the remarks of E. C. T., conductress 
of a woman's department in the Star, see Truth Seeker, 
Feb. 19, 1916, p. 121. See also editorial in Truth 
Seeker, Nov. 18, 1916, p. 741.] 



81 



SPINOZA: A TRIBUTE 

*'I thank . . . Spinoza^ the subtlest of men." 
— Ingersoll (in "A Thanksgiving Sermon'' ). 

"All our modern philosophers^ though often per- 
haps unconsciously^ see through the glasses which 
Baruch Spinoza ground/' — Heine, 

EVEN in the present year of grace 
nineteen hundred and eighteen, 
malice and "wickedness of heart" are often 
charitably alleged to be the temper actuat- 
ing those who urge the arguments of 
Reason as against the dogmata of Faith; 
but we, the "wicked of heart," knowing 
our hearts, do well to ignore the mean and 
ignoble aspersion. That it is one glorious 
function of Rationalism to revive bitter 
memories of the past that better memories 
may fall to the lot of the future — in this 

8SJ 



SPINOZA: A TRIBUTE 

conviction is to be found at once the psy- 
chological mainspring and most potent in- 
spiration of militant Rationalistic propa- 
ganda. Thus, we who call ourselves 
Rationalists, few and scattered though we 
be, can be trusted not to let the world 
forget the harrowing picture of Giordano 
Bruno slowly meeting death, on the Flor- 
entine Campo dei Fiori, in flames lit by 
the hands of Dominican friars — Bruno 
the infidel, grandest victim of basest 
Roman Catholic persecution. We can be 
trusted not to let the world forget how, 
in the city of Geneva, Michael Servetus 
was burned at the stake by order of the 
godly, devilish Calvin — Servetus the dis- 
senter, undying prey to rabid Protestant 
zeal for the greater glory of God. And 
similarly can we be trusted not to let the 
world forget that the same or a like fate 
— ^piost probably death by stoning — would 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

have befallen Baruch de Espinoza (for so 
was the great Dutch thinker called before 
his formal emancipation) if Judaism, in 
his day, had been in the ascendant. 

Nor, because Spinoza survived the 
malevolence of his saintly enemies, is he 
on that account less worthy the veneration 
of mankind than either the martyred 
Bruno or the martyred Servetus. These 
last imperilled their lives, and succumbed; 
Spinoza imperilled his life, and escaped; 
but he did not fail to justify, splendidly 
and consistently throughout his career, 
the observation — made two centuries later 
m allusion to him — that "to die for the 
truth, they say, is hard : harder it is to live 

for it r 

"•I* ^^ ^V? ^* 

Majestic beyond words in its sim- 
plicity, invested with a noble and solitary 
grandeur, heroic, the figure of Benedict 

84 



SPINOZA: A TRIBUTE 

Spinoza stands at the entrance to that 
ancient temple which the sages of Miletus, 
first of the giant-brood of mighty thinkers, 
consecrated to Philosophy. Familiar 
enough to Rationalists, at least, is the in- 
spiring story of Spinoza's pilgrimage: his 
birth, at Amsterdam, in 1632; his infancy, 
his boyhood, and then his youth, character- 
ised by fearless, independent thinking; 
his excommunication, at the age of twenty- 
three, by the bigoted and densely ignorant 
rabbis, who would have followed the in- 
junction of their divinely inspired Old 
Testament and stoned him, had they had 
the power to do so ; his unceasing applica- 
tion, during the remainder of his life, in 
an atmosphere of almost perfect solitude, 
to philosophic study and meditation; his 
unpretentious pursuit, the while, of the 
humble calling— the grinding and polish- 
ing of lenses — by which he was enabled tq 

85 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

gain a meagre, though to him ample, live- 
lihood. 

Such was the substance of the first five 
chapters — chapters uneventful enough but 
for their single dramatic incident. Had 
they formed the whole of the tale, the 
name "Spinoza" would have passed away 
together with him who bore it, and — well, 
there would have been no tale ! But there 
were yet two chapters to be added — ^the 
first sublime and never-to-be-forgotten, 
the second tragic and ever-to-be-deplored ; 
chapter the sixth: Spinoza's construction 
of a system of thought unparalleled for 
sheer intellectual subtlety, and unequalled 
in its subsequent influence upon the minds 
of men;* and chapter the last: his un- 
timely death, hastened by the ravages of 
tuberculosis, in the year 1677, when the 

* It is not unnatural that Agnostics should view with 
satisfaction the ever-widening influence of Pantheism. 
For on the side of anthropomorphic religion, and ip- 

86 



SPINOZA: A TRIBUTE 

deathless heretic was only in the golden 

prime of life. 

* * * * 

Oh, how much better pleased would the 
gentle rabbis of Amsterdam have been 
with Spinoza's execution than with the 
mere excommunication to which, for want 
of something deadlier, they felt them- 
selves constrained to have recourse ! Wit- 
ness the fiendish wording of the ban which 
was publicly pronounced, on the 27th 
of July, 1656, upon the youthful Free- 
thinker who would not play the Prag- 
matist and dishonestly recant: — 

"The members of the council do you to wit that 
they have long known of the evil opinions and 
doings of Baruch de Espinoza, and have tried by 

deed of all theology grounded upon the idea of a 
personal God, Pantheism is Atheism; as the most creed- 
less of the creeds, it is least remote from Agnosticism; 
and it may well serve as a halfway house for many who 
are destined to reach "the Promised Land" by a devious 
route. 

87 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

divers methods and promises to make him turn 
from his evil ways. As they have not succeeded 
in effecting his improvement, but, on the contrary, 
have received every day more information about 
the abominable heresies which he has practised and 
taught, and other enormities which he has com- 
mitted, and as they have had many trustworthy 
witnesses of this, who have deposed and testified in 
the presence of the said Espinoza, and have con- 
victed him; and as all this has been investigated 
in the presence of the rabbis, it has been resolved 
with their consent that the said Espinoza should 
be anathematised and cut off from the people of 
Israel, and now he is anathematised with the fol- 
lowing anathema : — 

'* *With the judgment of the angels and with that 
of the saints, with the consent of God — blessed be 
He — and of all this holy congregation, before these 
sacred scrolls of the law, and the six hundred and 
thirteen precepts which are prescribed therein, we 
anathematise, cut off, execrate, and curse Baruch 
de Espinoza with the anathema wherewith Joshua 
anathematised Jericho, with the curse wherewith 
Elisha cursed the children, and with all the curses 
which are written in the law: cursed be he by day, 
and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he 
lieth down, and cursed be he when he riseth up; 
cursed be he when he goeth out, and cursed be he 

88 



SPINOZA: A TRIBUTE 

when he cometh in; the Lord will not pardon him; 
the wrath and fury of the Lord will be kindled 
against this man^ and bring down upon him all the 
curses which are written in the book of the law; 
and the Lord will destroy his name from under the 
heavens; and^ to his undoing, the Lord will cut 
him off from all the tribes of Israel, with all the 
curses of the firmament which are written in the 
book of the law. But ye that cleave unto the 
Lord your God, live all of you this day !' 

"We ordain that no one may communicate with 
him verbally or in writing, nor show him any 
favour, nor stay under the same roof with him, nor 
be within four cubits of him, nor read anything 
composed or written by him."^ 

Conceived and framed in the vindictive 
spirit of the 109th Psahn, this infamous 
document serves but to recall to the 
modern reader, for whom it assuredly pos- 
sesses no further significance, the circum- 

*Cf. Spinoza's Short Treatise on God, Man, and His 
Weil-Being (edited by A. Wolf), Introduction, pp. 
xlv-xlvi; Sir Frederick Pollock, Spinoza: His Life and 
Philosophy, 1880, p. 18; 2nd ed., 1899, pp. 17-18; Mat- 
thew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, 1st ser., 1905, pp. 
307-308. 

89 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

stance that it was Judaism that originally 
taught the thrice-damned lesson of re- 
ligious persecution to Christianity — the 
lesson which the pupil-faith learned so 
well and applied so remorselessly. Be- 
yond the recording of this familiar fact, 
suffice it to say that "the Lord" hath not 
destroyed Spinoza's name "from under the 
heavens"! On the contrary, the very 
malediction which was designed to render 
that result the more certain, made pos- 
sible, in fact, precisely the reverse! For, 
as has been eloquently said, the anathema, 
in effect, was for Spinoza "not a curse, 
but a blessing in disguise. It freed him 
entirely from sectarian and tribal con- 
siderations; it helped to make him a 
thinker of no particular sect and of no 
particular age, but for all men and for all 

times." 

* * * * 

90 



SPINOZA: A TRIBUTE 

To-day, "under the heavens," the name 
"Spinoza" signifies* infinitely more than 
the name "Jehovah."t 

* Among thinking men and women, of course. The other 
kind does not count — except numerically. 

t Is this mere fustian and bombast? Should any 
reader be disposed to feel that it is, let him peruse, say, 
the last chapter of Sir Frederick Pollock's standard 
work, referred to above. (Cf. Encyclopcedia Britannica, 
vol. XXV, p. 691; Picton, Pantheism: Its Story and 
Significance, passim.) 



91 



THE SUMMONS TO PRAYER 

ON the first Sunday of October* mul- 
titudes of churchgoers throughout 
the United States assembled in their re- 
spective houses of worship and petitioned 
the Ruler of heaven and earth that the 
war raging in Europe might cease. But 
the struggle still goes on. 

Prayer has not stopped the war. Prayer 
cannot and will not stop the war. And 
yet the President's prayer day procla- 
mation is destined to effect very definite 
and momentous results. What will 
they be? 

For one thing, the absence of an an- 
swer to their supplications will set many 
thousands thinking. These are a few of 

* [1914.— See Preface.] 
92 



THE SUMMONS TO PRAYER 

the questions which they will ask them- 
selves : — 

"Can it be that God wishes the war to 
continue? If he does, what is the use of 
praying to him? If he does, is he really 
infinitely good? Or is he still a 'jealous 
God'? Is he still the God who cries: 
'Vengeance is mine!'? If so, is he a God 
or a demon? 

"If God wishes the war not to continue, 
why does it not end immediately? Is God 
not omnipotent? Why, in fact, did the 
war ever begin? 

"Is God omniscient, or is he not? If 
the former, does he not know in advance 
what the result of the war is to be, and 
when it is to cease? Why, then, pray to 
him? And if he is not all-knowing, is he 
a God worthy of the name? 

"Is there a personal God, or is there 
not?" 

93 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

Many will smother their doubts by de- 
voutly murmuring, "Thy will be done," 
little suspecting that they thus blaspheme 
the very deity they worship. Others will 
manfully face the facts, and will accept 
the verdict of reason. There is but one 
possible verdict. Upon them will be 
forced the conviction that, whereas God 
and his churches have ever failed to secure 
peace, man alone and unaided, by adopt- 
ing different tactics, may yet succeed in 
ushering in the reign of universal brother- 
hood.* 

At the outbreak of the present European 
holocaust a correspondent of the London 

* [To-day (May 14, 1918), as I re-read this passage, 
it occurs to me that exactly three and a half years have 
passed since the date of its first publication. Only 
three and a half years: yet how strange a sound have 
the words "universal brotherhood" acquired during that 
short period! 

"... All the interim is 
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream."] 

94 



THE SUMMONS TO PRAYER 

Literary Guide ventured the suggestion 
that the following form of intercession be 
used in the churches of all denomina- 
tions : — 

''Almighty God and Father and Protector of all 
that trust in Thee^ who art the only giver of 
victory^ and canst save by many or by few: 

''We implore Thee^ in this great calamity which 
has overwhelmed Thy people through the madness 
of wicked men^ to save the world from the un- 
speakable horrors of war. 

"For nearly two thousand years we have been 
taught that Thou canst do all this in virtue of 
Thy almighty will. We therefore implore Thee 
at this time to manifest Thy wisdom and power 
by changing the implements of destruction into the 
means of health and wealthy by causing strife and 
bloodshed to cease^ and by making known the 
reality of Thy goodness. 

"If our prayer receives no response, we shall 
know that Thy servants have deluded us with false 
promises, that Thy hand is nowhere visible in the 
life of the world, and that there is no heavenly 
Father in whose love we may trust." 

Yes, indeed; the believer in a personal, 

95 



THROUGH AGNOSTIC SPECTACLES 

beneficent, overruling Providence will be 
obliged to put a number of painful ques- 
tions to himself.* 

Thus the world moves on. 

* [Curiously enough, vestiges of belief in the bene- 
ficence of a personal God may persist (doubtless as a 
result, at least in part, of childhood training) even 
under the guise of Agnosticism. Thus, Sir Henry 
Thompson, who regarded himself as "agnostic to the 
backbone," nevertheless conceived "the beneficence of 
the Infinite and Eternal Energy [italics mine] to be 
proved beyond dispute," and maintained that he found 
"no difficulty" in "the existence of wars and misery." 
The letter containing and expatiating upon these opin- 
ions is introduced with the remark that the writer — 
whose parents, significantly, "were strict Baptists" — 
••became an Agnostic, although not with the sure-footed- 
ness of Huxley." Cf. Clodd, Memories, pp. 4&-49. — 
More familiar, of course, is the case of Matthew Arnold. 
Cf. Bury, History of Freedom of Thought, pp. 218-219.] 



96 



Xines to f . 2)* 



Seek not through prayer the goal of your desire: 

Vain must prove the quest ! 
Bend not the knee to but a fabled Sire 

At a priest's behest ! 
Have faith — have faith in me! — and let me be to 

you 
What only Man can be — a friend and comrade true. 



97 



APPENDIX 



"Not one reader in a hundred takes the pains to 
turn backwards and forwards, as such appendicidar 
references regwire."— MylesDavies: AthenwBn- 
tannicw, vol. ii, p. 192 (London, 1716). 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF FAITH 
AND FlLTn— NOTES 

1 Lecky, Histmy of European Morals, 1869, vol. ii, pp. 
119^120; 1904. vol. ii, p. 112; BPA- ed.. vol. ii, p. 48. 

2. The chronology, here and elsewhere, cannot be deter- 
mined with precision, and must frequently be taken with the 
proverbial grain of salt. 

3. St. Athanasius. Life of St. Anthony, in Nuiene and Post- 
Nicene Fathers. ZndseT..yo\.iy. p. 195. 

4 Ibid p 196. Cf. Cydopmdia of Btbhcal. Theological. 
aJt Ecclesiastical LUerature. vol. i, p. 250; Catholic Encyclo- 
pedia. vol. i, p. 554; Encyclopmdia Britanmca. vol. xvui, 
p 687; Cassels, SMperno«MraZ KeKffwra. B.P.A. ed.. p. 98. 

6. The translator has « into." for which to is here 
substituted, in conformity with the best modern usage. (Cf . 
iVew £no/M Dictionorj/. vol. vii, p. 1645.) 

6. St. Athanasius. Life of St. Anthony. ^J^^^'^'^^i^ ^J"^ 
Nicene Fathers. 2nd ser., vol. iv. p. 209. Cf. White. Warfare 
of Science with Theology, vol. u. pp. 69, 71 note, 

9? 



APPENDIX 

7. Cf. St. Athanasius, Life of St. Anthony, in Nlcene and 
Post-Nieene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. iv, p. 209. 

8. I.e., from about his twentieth year (cf. p. 39) until 
his death. 

9. Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. i, pp. 553, 555; CyclO' 
pcedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, 
vol. i, pp. 250, 251; vol. vi, p. 466; Encyclopcedia Britannica, 
vol. ii, p. 96; vol. xviii, p. 687; Neander, History of the 
Christian Religion and Church, 1849, vol. ii, p. 229. 

10. Cycloposdia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical 
Literature (edited by John McClintock, D.D., and James 
Strong, S.T.D.), vol. vi, p. 468 (unsigned article). Cf. St. 
Athanasius, Life of St, Anthony, in Nicene and Post-Nicene 
Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. iv, p. 195; Cassels, Supernatural 
Religion, R.P.A. ed., p. 99. 

11. For reference to St. Athanasius as " Bishop of Alexan- 
dria," see Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. ii, p. 35 (art. " St. Athana- 
sius "). For reference to him as " the great Archbishop of 
Alexandria," see ibid., p. 34 (art. " Athanasian Creed "). Cf. 
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. iv, pp. xxxvii, 
564. 

12. St. Athanasius, Life of St. Anthony, in Nicene and Post- 
Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. iv, p. 220. 

13. Ibid. 

14. Besides, it seems to have been accounted a great priv- 
ilege to wear part of the apparel of a deceased ascetic. It is 
related of St. Anthony himself that " on the feast-days of 
Easter and Pentecost he always wore " the tunic of palm- 
leaves which St. Paul the Hermit " had so long worn " (St. 
Jerome, Life of Paulus the First Hermit, in Nicene and Post- 
Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, pp. 301, 302); and St. 
Jerome concludes the treatise in question with the avowal 
that he " would much sooner take Paul's tunic with its merits, 
than the purple of kings with their punishment " {ibid., p. 

100 



APPENDIX 

SOS). Of St. Hilarion it is related that he bequeathed to his 
friend and disciple Hesychius " all his riches," comprising, 
in addition to " a copy of the Gospels," his eminently filthy 
" sackcloth tunic, cowl, and cloak " (idem. Life of St. Hilarion, 
ibid., p. 314; cf. p. 315, and see pp. 51-54, above). 

15. St. Athanasius, Life of St. Anthony, in Nicene and Post- 
Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. iv, p. 221. 

16. Ibid, Cf. Lecky, History of European Morals, 1869, 
vol. ii, p. 117; 1904, vol. ii, pp. 109-110; R.P.A. ed., vol. ii, 
p. 47; Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral 
Ideas, vol. ii, p. 355; Maeterlinck, Miracle of Saint Anthony, 
passim (summarised in New York Times Review of Books, 
Aug. 11, 1918, p. 349). 

17. The Athanasian Creed. Cf. Cyclopwdia of Biblical, 
Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, vol. ii, pp. 560-562; 
Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. ii, pp. 33-35; Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica, vol. vii, p. 398; Bonner, The Chri§tian Hell, pp. 7-8, 93. 

18. St. Athanasius, Life of St. Anthony, in Nicene and Post- 
Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. iv, p. 221. 

19. Cf. Cyclopcedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical 
Literature, vol. i, p. 508; vol. vi, p. 468; Catholic Encyclopedia, 
vol. X, p. 473. 

20. Cf. arts. " Monasticism '* and " St. Jerome " in Cyclo- 
posdia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, 
Catholic Encyclopedia, and Encyclopcedia Britannica; Catholic 
Encyclopedia, vol. v, p. 75; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 
2nd ser., vol. vi, p. xi. 

21. St. Jerome, Letter XIV (to Heliodorus), in Nicene and 
Post'Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, p. 14. 

22. Cf. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, 
p. 13. 

23. A pedantic allusion to Virgil's Mneid, bk. xii, 1. 59. 

24. St. Jerome, Letter XIV (to Heliodorus), in Nicene and 
Post'Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, p. 14. 

101 



APPENDIX 

25. Matt. X. 34-39. (Cf. Luke xii, 51-53; xiv, 26-27, S3.) 

26. Cf. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, 
p. xvii; Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. viii, p. 341. 

27. St. Jerome, Letter XVII (to the Presbyter Marcus), 
in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, p. 21, 
This letter was written from the desert in the year 378 or 
379 {ibid., p. 20). 

28. Ibid., p. 21. 

29. Cf. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, 
p. 22. 

30. St. Jerome, Letter XXII (to Eustochium), ibid., p. 25. 

31. Cf. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, 
p. xviii; Cyclopcsdia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical 
Literature, vol. iv, p. 831; Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. viii, 
p. 341; Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. xv, pp. 327-328. 

32. Cf. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, 
p. 299; Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. viii, p. 341; Encyclopcedia 
Britannica, vol. xv, p. 327. 

33. St. Jerome, Life of Paulus the First Hermit, in Nicene 
and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, p. 300. Cf . Lecky, 
History of European Morals, 1869, vol. ii, pp. 114-115; 1904, 
vol. ii, pp. 107-108; R.P.A. ed., vol. ii, p. 46.—" Paulus the 
First Hermit " is to-day commonly referred to as " St. Paul 
the Hermit." Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. xi, pp. 590-591, 

34. St. Jerome, Life of Paulus the First Hermit, in Nicene 
and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, p. 301. 

35. Ibid. (Cf. pp. 41-42, above.) 

36. Ibid., pp. 301-302. 

37. Cf. p. 53. 

38. St. Jerome, Life of St, Hilarion, in Nicene and PosU 
Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, p. 306. 

39. October 21st. 

40. Cf. Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary, 9th ed., 
1917 (revised by Rev. T. B. Scannell, D.D.), pp. 04-95; 

102 



APPENDIX 

Cyclopcsdia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Litera' 
tare, vol. i, p. 886; Encyclopcedia Britannica, vol. iv, p. 505; 
Protestant Dictionary (edited by Rev. Charles H. H. Wright, 
D.D., and Rev. Charles Neil), pp. 84, 85; McCabe, Twelve 
Years in a Monastery, R.P.A. ed., pp. 92-93; idem. Popes 
and Their Church, p. 163. 

41. Breviarium Romanum, die xxi Octobris (October 21st). 
Cf. White, Warfare of Science with Theology, vol. ii, pp. 69, 
71 note. 

4i2, Even according to the free and not wholly accurate 
rendition given by one who, in his preface, protests " that if, 
(which he hopes and believes is not the case,) either the trans- 
lation itself, or the footnotes, should contain anything which 
a faithful Catholic ought not to have written, he has written 
such passage inadvertently." See Roman Breviary, translated 
by John, Marquess of Bute, K.T., 1879, vol. ii, p. 1323, 
which I cite in the text in order to avoid even the remotest 
appearance of desiring to force an unfavourable translation. 
Yet it may be pardonable to point out, in a note relegated to 
the appendix, that according to the Latin version St. Hilar ion 
" used to sleep on the ground. Nor, indeed, did he ever 
wash or change the sackcloth in which he once was clothed, 
since he used to say that it was superfluous to look for cleanli- 
ness in goats* haircloth " (cf. p. 54, above). 

43. Newman's works, passim; see, e.g., his Apologia pro 
Vita Sua, 1882, pp. 323-324. Cf. Protestant Dictionary, p. 85. 

44. Cf. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, 
p. 303. 

45. St. Jerome, Life of St. Hilarion, ibid. 

46. Ibid., p. 304. 

47. Ibid. 

48. Ibid., p. 311. 

49. Ibid., p. 304. 
aO. Ibid., p. 310. 

103 



APPENDIX 

51. Ibid., p. 805. Cf. pp. 51-52, above, and note 42; 
Lecky, History of European Morals, 1869, vol. ii, p. 115; 
1904, vol. ii, p. 108; R.P.A. ed., vol. ii, p. 46; White, Warfare 
of Science with Theology, vol. ii, pp. 69, 71 note. 

52. St. Jerome, Life of St. Hilarion, in Nicene and Post- 
Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, p. 305. 

53. Ibid. 

54. Ibid., pp. 314-315. St. Jerome unreservedly declares that 
" the holy man Hesychius " " stole the saint's body " (ibid.). 

55. Ibid., p. 315. Cf. Cassels, Supernatural Religion, 
R.P.A. ed., pp. 99-100. 

56. St. Jerome, Life of St. Hilarion, in Nicene and Post- 
Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi, p. 310. 

57. That is, of course, if Jesus was indeed (as I believe 
him to have been) an historical character. — Cf. the Gospels, 
passim. 

58. Quoted with approval — though not, as generally 
believed, originated — by John Wesley (Works: sermon en- 
titled " On Dress ")» who should have known better. 
Likewise, Bacon was in error in declaring that " cleanness of 
body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to 
God " (Advancement of Learning, Wright's ed., p. 142; 
Kitchin's ed., p. 177; cf. De Augmentis Scientiarum, bk. iv, 
chap. ii). For recent statements similar in purport, see, e.g., 
arts, by Rev. Frank Crane, D.D., in New York Globe, Sept. 
22, 1916; Jan. 5, 1918.— Cf. Bonner, The Christian Hell, 
p. 122; Literary Guide, Jan., 1913, p. 2; New York Tribune, 
Sept. 1, 1917, p. 8, col. 5; New York Evening Post, July 1, 
1918, p. 10, col. 3; Hutchinson, Preventable Diseases, p. 98; 
Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, 
chap, xxxix; Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. vii, p. 114. 

59. St. Ephraem, Vita Sancti Abrahce Eremitae, Prologus 
Auctoris, in Migne, PatrologicB Cursus, Series Latina, vol. 
kxiii, col. 282. 

104i 



APPENDIX 

60. Not, as has been commonly but erroneously asserted, 
St. Ephraem Syrus. Cf. Baring-Gould, Lives of the Saints, 
vol. iii, p. 275. 

61. Cf. St. Ephraem, Vita Sandce Marice Meretricis, in 
Migne, PatrologicB Cursus, Series Latina, vol. Ixxiii, col. 658. 

62. Idem, Vita Sancti Abrahoe EremitoB, ibid., col. 283. 

63. Op. cit., Prologus Auctoris, ibid., col. 284. 

64. Op. cit., ibid., col. 292; idem. Vita SanctcB Marias 
Meretricis, ibid., col. 658. Cf. Baring-Gould, Lives of the 
Saints, vol. iii, p. 278. 

65. St. Ephraem, Vita Sancti Abrahoe Eremites, Prologus 
Auctoris, in Migne, Patrologice Cursus, Series Latina, vol. 
Ixxiii, cols. 281-282. 

06. Op. cit., ibid., col. 284. 

67. Cf. op. cit., Prologus Auctoris, ibid., cols. 283-284. 

68. Op. cit., ibid., col. 292. Cf . Lecky, History of European 
Morals, 1869, vol. ii, p. 117; 1904, vol. ii, p. 110; R.P.A. ed., 
vol. ii, p. 47; White, Warfare of Science with Theology, vol. ii, 
pp. 69, 71 note. 

69. St. Ephraem, Vita Sanctae Marice Meretricis, in Migne, 
PatrologicB Cursus, Series Latina, vol. Ixxiii, col. 659. 

70. Idem, Vita Sancti Abrahce Eremitce, ibid., col. 291. 

71. To be sure, it might conceivably be maintained that 
it was a sheer physical impossibility for the saints to have 
been quite as filthy as they are portrayed in their own and 
in one another's accounts. The two possible alternatives, 
however, are plain enough: either the saints were indeed as 
superlatively filthy as depicted, and proudly told the truth 
about themselves and one another — in which case the objec- 
tion would not be well taken; or else, in fulfilling what they 
regarded as a necessary condition of salvation, they were only 
as dirty as they could possibly be, and supplied the slight 
deficiency by falsehood. I am content to leave the resolu- 
tion of this exquisite dilemma to those who may have at 

105 



APPENDIX 

heart the reputation and good name of the Christian saint- 
hood. 

72. For brief references to additional cases of saintly 
filthiness, see Lecky and White, pages elsewhere cited; 
Nicene and PosUNicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. xiii, p. 126; 
McCabe, Twelve Years in a Monastery, R.P.A. ed., p. 248 
(quoted in Truth Seeker, Nov. 11, 1916, p. 727); Ferrer, 
Origin and Ideals of the Modern School (translated by Joseph 
McCabe), Putnam ed., p. 52; R.P.A. ed., p. 38. Cf. IngersoU, 
Lectures and Essays (Watts), 1st ser., pp. 65, 111, 114, 117; 
2nd ser., pp. 142, 150; Bentham, Introduction to the Prin- 
ciples of Morals and Legislation, 1879, pp. 11-12; BoxaU, 
The Anglo-Saxon, pp. 186, 187. 

73. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, bk. ii, chap, xxiii. 

74. Encyclopcedia Biblica, vol. ii, col. 2320. (But cf. note 
57, above.) 

75. Cf. Cyclopcedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiasti- 
cal Literature, vol. iii, p. 356; Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. v, 
p. 617; Encyclopcedia Britannica, vol. ix, p. 954. 

76. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, bk. ii, chap, xxiii. Cf. 
Cassels, Supernatural Religion, R.P.A. ed., pp. 268-269; 
Lecky, History of European Morals, 1869, vol. ii, pp. 111-112; 
1904, vol. ii, p. 105; R.P.A. ed., vol. ii, p. 45; Catholic Ency- 
clopedia, vol. viii, p. 281. 

77. "The good God would see you!" — McCabe, Twelve 
Years in a Monastery, R.P.A. ed., p. 133; cf. pp. 16, 130, 150 
note, 168, 224, 225, 227. (See also pp. 41, 76, 134.)— Cf. 
IngersoU, Lectures and Essays (Watts), 3rd ser., pp. 38, 125; 
Parton, Life of Voltaire, vol. i, p. 303. 

78. See Tennyson's poem, " St. Simeon Stylites." 

79. Cf. Lecky, History of European Morals, 1869, vol. ii, 
pp. 118-119, 121, 138; 1904, vol. ii, pp. 111-112, 114, 130; 
R.P.A. ed., vol. ii, pp. 47-48, 55', Evagrius, Ecclesiastical 
History, bk. i, chaps, xiii-xiv, in Theodoret and Evagrius, 

106 



APPENDIX 

History of the Church, pp. 272-276; White, Warfare of Science 
with Theology, vol. ii, pp. 69, 71 note; Westermarck, Origin 
and Development of the Moral Ideas, vol. ii, pp. 355-356. 

80. See, for an admirable account of the historical rela- 
tion of Christianity to sanitation. White, Warfare of Science 
with Theology, chap. xiv. Cf. Mark Twain, The Mysterious 
Stranger, p. 123; Rev. E. Conybeare, Highways and Byways 
in Cambridge and Ely, pp. 153, 220 (cited in New York Evening 
Mail, Nov. 9, 1916); McCabe, Bankruptcy of Religion, pp. 
275-276 (cited in Literary Guide, May, 1917, p, 66); Literary 
Guide, Jan., 1908, p. 4; Nov., 1914, p. 173; Dec, 1916, pp. 
180-181; Feb., 1917, p. 31; March, 1917, p. 38; Oct., 1917, 
p. 155; Dec, 1917, p. 181; Truth Seeker, Jan. 13, 1917, pp. 
17-18; Life, June 27, 1918, p. 1019. For modern develop- 
ments and side-lights, see Ferrer, Origin and Ideals of the 
Modern School (translated by Joseph McCabe), chap, vii; 
Hutchinson, Preventable Diseases, pp. 97-98; Clodd, Memories, 
inscription facing p. 124; Cook, Life of Florence Nightingale, 
vol. i, p. 479 (cited in Literary Guide, Jan., 1914, p. 9) ; Literary 
Guide, March, 1908, p. 46; Nov., 1914, p. 171; April, 1916, 
p. 55; Truth Seeker, July 29, 1916, pp. 484-485; Aug. 26, 
1916, p. 549; Sept. 30, 1916, pp. 631-632; Feb. 3, 1917, p. 71; 
Feb. 10, 1917, p. 88; Nov. 24. 1917, pp. 744, 745. For 
additional references to the uncleanliness of saints treated 
of in the text — the collection of references already given 
being by no means exhaustive — see, e.g.. Dictionary of Chris- 
tian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines (edited by 
Smith and Wace), passim; Dictionary of Christian Biography 
and Literature (edited by Wace and Piercy), passim. For a 
recent indictment of Christian asceticism, interesting partly 
because written from a Christian (Methodist) point of view, 
partly because the author makes no mention whatever of the 
most loathsome aspect of the subject he discusses, see Baines- 
Griffiths, Our Brother of Joy, passim; and cf . Rt. Rev. C. H. 

107 



APPENDIX 

Brent (Episcopalian bishop), Splendour of the Human Body, 
pp. 9 et seq. For the specifically psychological significance of 
asceticism, see Hart, Psychology of Insanity, p. 4; Janet, 
Major Symptoms of Hysteria, pp. 8-10; Literary Guide, 
March, 1918, pp. 41-42; and cf. Emerson, Swedenhorg; or. 
The Mystic, in Complete Works, Centenary Edition, vol. iv, 
p. 97. 



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